Treat journalists as frontline workers and allow priority vaccination: Editors Guild to government

In a statement today, the Editors Guild of India urged the union government to declare journalists as frontline workers and allow them "priority vaccinations" against Covid.

"News organisations have been relentlessly covering the pandemic, elections, and other current affairs in an effort to ensure that the flow of news and information to readers continues unabated," the statement said. "...Therefore, it will only be fair that journalists be given this cover of protection, especially in the face of number of infected rising to astronomical levels."

The statement pointed out that media personnel were finding it "very difficult to discharge their professional responsibilities" without the protection of a vaccine.

The guild's statement comes a day after Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said his government was writing to the centre to treat journalists as frontline workers and get them vaccinated.

India's Covid cases doubled in just 10 days, overtaking Brazil this week to become the country with the second highest number of cases.